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Old 09-06-2012, 07:00 PM   #76
Jonathan
 
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Originally Posted by Saya View Post
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y86X8...feature=colike

Seriously, I know you're privileged and think only poor people are actually oppressed in this society. I know you'd rather ignore sexism and feel the only oppression you might feel in your life is the only oppression that exists. I know you don't want to know that there's some things you'll never know because you're a cisgender straight white man.
I've worked with and under men and women of varying ethnicities. I don't recall many times in which I have been subordinate to someone of a lower economic standing. My experience is anecdotal but I don't think it is unique.

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But for those of us who were raised as girls, we have had it drilled in our heads since we were little that if a man decides to rrape us he will and the only thing we can do about it is not give him the chance, and that means no getting drunk, no going out by yourself, no being alone with men. There will be no justice for us if a man decides to rrape us, because, society tells us, rrape is like an act of God that can't be helped, just don't get in its way. If you do, your own fault.
That is awful and it has to change.

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So no, we can't give men the benefit of the doubt. We need to survive. I put survival above giving a man the benefit of the doubt late at night when I'm trapped in an elevator with him. If I'm walking home alone at night and there's a man walking behind me, sure as shit I'm going to put my survival above his feelings and walk faster and run into a store until he's further ahead. Sure as shit I'm going to assume the worst about the guy who walked up to me without a word and tried to drag me off somewhere had the worst of intentions, and I haven't gone to a club since, because I don't feel safe. Unless when you hear the clicking of heels behind you at night, your first thought is "please, don't hurt me", you can't understand the fear we've been raised with and rely on.
As a priveleged CVP, I can never truly relate. I've walked around some nasty places and been acutely aware that there was someone else nearby without knowing their intentions. I might not have to worry about getting *****, but I don't want to get stabbed, shot or mugged either. Nobody should have to cross the street early, or duck into a shop, or anything else out of fear of bodily injury or unwelcome / uninvited contact. I do not go into a Deadman mindset of reaching for my gat when I realize someone is walking towards me, but I can understand that brief moment where you realize someone else is out there and you don't know what they might do. Not feeling safe sucks, and no amount of privilege or white crackeriness dismisses that.

The one time I thought someone was rushing me and I turned to face them was really scary until I realized he was going past me. Those were a few very intense seconds. I get being scared. I don't get trying to inflate my false-positive as something it wasn't.

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As for why this particular instance got a -gate after it, seeing the lack of support from male atheists is very telling. Dawkins showing his true colours by saying western women can't complain when white men corner them to solicit them because at least white men don't chop off their genitals like those evil brown Muslims, for example, is -gate worthy. But not surprising in the least, because, after all, we're raised to know that men only love us when we bow our heads and take whatever shit they give us.
In some sense, I can view Dawkin's clumsy response as an attempt to play a variation of the "Privilege" card on Watson. It was a stupid remark making a stupid point in a stupid way. Has he been smart enough to keep his mouth shut since?
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:14 PM   #77
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Dawkins shouldn't just keep his mouth shut. Dawkins should understand why it was wrong to downplay an atheist comrade like that.


Fuck him until he realizes why he was wrong. He shouldn't just keep his mouth shut.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:21 PM   #78
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I've worked with and under men and women of varying ethnicities. I don't recall many times in which I have been subordinate to someone of a lower economic standing. My experience is anecdotal but I don't think it is unique.
Women and people of colour are far more likely to live in poverty and live unemployed. People of colour generally do not have generational wealth to fall back on. People of colour often to have to adapt a "white voice" for when they're talking to white people, for white people to treat them nicely, let alone give them a job. White people mostly do not associate with people of colour, only something like one in ten white people can honestly say they have a close friend who is non-white. White people still tend to live in all white neighbourhoods and have only white friends and hire their white friends. There is also the wage gap, white women like to say we only make 79 cents to a man's dollar, but that is actually racialized. White women tend to make more than black men but black women make less than black men, etc. Here in Canada aboriginal women only make 49 cents to a white man's dollar. THAT is why your position is bullshit because classism has everything to do with sexism and racism. A white person can get rich and no longer be oppressed, but a black person can't shed their skin and no longer experience racism ever again.





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The one time I thought someone was rushing me and I turned to face them was really scary until I realized he was going past me. Those were a few very intense seconds. I get being scared. I don't get trying to inflate my false-positive as something it wasn't.
Its like you almost got it and then did a U-turn. To us, every god damn neighbourhood is a bad neighbourhood. Every man could easily overpower you and rrape you. And we got to think this way to survive, fuck your feelings about it. For all we know, that guy who turns away at the last second was thinking about jumping us and then changed his mind.

Its like when people of colour tell me they don't trust white people. I don't get mad, because I know every thirty six hours this year a black person has been killed by a white cop or security guard or vigilante. Being paranoid is a survival technique, and as Audre Lorde put it, people of colour were never meant to survive in this world, they don't have rules to follow to avoid it like white women like to tell ourselves.

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In some sense, I can view Dawkin's clumsy response as an attempt to play a variation of the "Privilege" card on Watson. It was a stupid remark making a stupid point in a stupid way. Has he been smart enough to keep his mouth shut since?
Its not a privilege call out to Watson, its Dawkins being racist because brown women can only be oppressed because they suffer at the hands of brown men. White men are awesome and therefore can't be oppressive, only liberators, saving women from religion and brown men everywhere.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:23 PM   #79
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Dawkins shouldn't just keep his mouth shut. Dawkins should understand why it was wrong to downplay an atheist comrade like that.


Fuck him until he realizes why he was wrong. He shouldn't just keep his mouth shut.
"The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that....Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behavior, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me"
-Richard Dawkins
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:25 PM   #80
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"Stop whining will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and...yawn...don't tell me again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery," he wrote. "But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with."

Did you read the whole fucking thing?
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:32 PM   #81
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Yup. That was regrettably artless.

Although I am not getting "only brown women can be oppressed", I'm getting "on the scale of injustices this elevator incident is kind of trivial".
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:37 PM   #82
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Yup. That was regrettably artless.

Although I am not getting "only brown women can be oppressed", I'm getting "on the scale of injustices this elevator incident is kind of trivial".
Both are racist.

Go read Audre Lorde's open letter to Mary Daly. White people have a tendency to believe that those we Other only meet with oppression at each other's hands and do not find empowerment in their own cultures and traditions. We use them for our own colonialist and imperial gains, we use them to shut each other up, but otherwise we do not give two shits about them and will bomb them beyond recognition if the mood strikes us. We only care about brown bodies if we can use them to our own ends.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:39 PM   #83
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Here's a funny thing. I pulled this from http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...omment-4309418

"The elevator incident demands…a personal rejection and a woman nicely suggesting to the atheist community that they avoid doing that. And that is what it got. That is all Rebecca Watson did. For those of you who are outraged at that, I ask: which part of her response fills you with fury? That a woman said no, or that a woman has asked men to be more sensitive?"

" The guy in the elevator was not accused of being a rapist; I got the impression from Rebecca that she wasn’t even really worried about serious threat to her safety, but was annoyed that she was being pestered by an insensitive cad. It was “slightly bad,” as you put it, and she responded at an appropriate level to the problem. She basically said to the atheist community, ‘hey, guys, don’t be an insensitive cad,’ a suggestion I find remarkably uncontroversial — it’s a slightly good suggestion in response to a slightly bad problem. It’s darned good advice, even.

Here’s exactly what she said:

Um, just a word to wise here, guys, uh, don’t do that. You know, I don’t really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I’ll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4:00 am, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and—don’t invite me back to your hotel room right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.

That really should be sufficient to explain to everyone exactly what was ‘slightly bad’ about this situation."

So when PZ Myers says that the reasonable response to the incident is a personal rejection and a general suggestion, is he also contributing to a culture of **** because he does not see it as a horribly harrowing incident?

I'm now convinced, this is inflated beyond reason and the only appropriate response is bemusement. Storm in a teacup. Good day.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:41 PM   #84
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Fuck you. I would never trust men like you to hold my drink at a party, you know why? Because you think this shit is funny.

No one here said its a harrowing story. Watson never said it. What we're saying is its not cool to corner women into elevators and solicit them, for coffee or bluntly for sex, because we're scared in elevators alone with men. BE SENSITIVE ABOUT IT AND DONT BE A CREEP.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:42 PM   #85
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What he said was "regrettably artless"? Are you kidding me?

What he said is beyond fucked up, his words are rage inducing, they are the epitome of the hidden ignorance and hate that is ingrained in our social fabric. The fact that you can describe it as "regrettably artless" shows just how much you do not get it.
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Old 09-06-2012, 07:48 PM   #86
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This is why I said I was done with cis men until Versus asked me out.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:15 PM   #87
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Just turn them down? You don't say.

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“Why are you afraid of women?” I asked a group of men.
“We’re afraid they’ll laugh at us,” replied the men.
“Why are you afraid of men?” I asked a group of women
“We’re afraid they’ll kill us,” replied the woman. -Margaret Atwood
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:17 PM   #88
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I don't think the elevator incident was funny, I think the hullabaloo over it is hilarious though. Although I can't even call it that anymore - it isn't about the guy in the elevator, it's about whether Richard Dawkins is a dick or not.

Reviewing this thread, it was starting to sound like some horrible misjustice and indicative of the evils of society. I read, watch some videos, read some more, and just can't escape the feeling that this thing is being blown out of proportion. Then I find this. It turns out to be an argument about how Richard Dawkins writes, not whoever mystery elevator man happens to be. Nobody even cares about him anymore, not even Watson! My opinion of the woman just went up.

Even the woman that this literally, directly happened to wasn't all that put out. The fucking horror. You guys almost had me going. It was "slightly bad".

The woman that this literally happened to is less worked up about this than some of you. That is comedy gold.

It's probably for the best if you hold your own drinks - if this were in person I'd be spilling them left and right cracking up.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:24 PM   #89
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I like this.

http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:28 PM   #90
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Reviewing this thread, it was starting to sound like some horrible misjustice and indicative of the evils of society. I read, watch some videos, read some more, and just can't escape the feeling that this thing is being blown out of proportion. Then I find this. It turns out to be an argument about how Richard Dawkins writes, not whoever mystery elevator man happens to be. Nobody even cares about him anymore, not even Watson! My opinion of the woman just went up.

Because we were trying to get you to understand why women would find being solicited in an elevator upsetting. It can be harrowing and bad, it can be annoying and aggrivating, good for Watson if she didn't find it THAT bad.

But what you're saying now is that every woman who does get triggered by clueless men is hilarious and stupid? That somehow everything we've said about privilege and our experiences as women are now invalid because not every single instance where we're solicited is hugely scary?

Cracker von Patriarch, he lives.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:42 PM   #91
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Not to mention that the discourse about the situation isn't just about what happened to her and it isn't just about what Dawkins said, there is a larger narrative going on that you seem completely ignorant of and that you seem to want to continue to be ignorant of.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:45 PM   #92
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Not to mention that the discourse about the situation isn't just about what happened to her and it isn't just about what Dawkins said, there is a larger narrative going on that you seem completely ignorant of and that you seem to want to continue to be ignorant of.
Its almost as if he's trying to say us getting upset over sexism and not giving men the benefit of the doubt is more ridiculous and troubling than white men using their position of power to perpetuate sexism and racism.

Its almost as if he benefits somehow by perpetuating sexism and trying to find ways to delegitimize victims of sexism all at the same time, weird.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:45 PM   #93
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/hijack

So I was thinking, and you know what? Occupy is a bunch of bullshit. Those protesters and their supporters are just a bunch whiny gimme gimmes looking for hand outs. How can they complain about anything in society when there are teenagers going to war and millions of people starving. I bet you guys anybody at Occupy has never starved or gone to war. Seems pretty first world to bitch about a couple wealthy people, to me.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:47 PM   #94
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Okay... so what is this argument actually about? Because, I'm lost. The reaction to Skepchick's blog? Or the actual event? In any case, the reaction has both astounded and aggravated me. The actual event though, it's not something I can get angry at.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:49 PM   #95
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Never mind, if I had waited 3 minutes, I would have gotten my answer.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:49 PM   #96
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Okay... so what is this argument actually about? Because, I'm lost. The reaction to Skepchick's blog? Or the actual event? In any case, the reaction has both astounded and aggravated me. The actual event though, it's not something I can get angry at.
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:50 PM   #97
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Where the fuck do you get that?

I still agree that the blogpost about the Long Beach public transportation harassment was completely unacceptable. It was clearly an abusive system, and illustrates issues with our society... Being awkwardly hit on in an elevator doesn't. If your take away is that everything is now invalidated because this one incident wasn't a big deal, then you're just looking at something to be mad about because you don't like my screen name. Come the fuck on.

Yes, bad things can happen in an elevator. This however, wasn't that bad. Watson doesn't think it was that bad. PZ Myer apparently didn't think it was that bad, why is it so awful if I don't think it is all that bad either? Are PZ Myer and Rebecca Watson also Cracker Von Patriarchs? This is just silly now.

http://elevatorgate.wordpress.com/
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:51 PM   #98
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74dJMT75csk
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:52 PM   #99
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You know what, can we come back to the larger narrative after we clarify whether or not I'm a monster because I don't think Elevatorgate was a big deal?
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Old 09-06-2012, 08:53 PM   #100
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Okay... so what is this argument actually about? Because, I'm lost. The reaction to Skepchick's blog? Or the actual event? In any case, the reaction has both astounded and aggravated me. The actual event though, it's not something I can get angry at.
Watch out, I tried to use up all of the tar and feathers but they might have some more hidden around the corner. Let me draw the rest of the fire first.
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